The museum Thanksgiving Day 2012 –
the museum is populated by a wonderful yet mysterious quiet & peace undisturbed by the frenetic masses. Silences punctuated only by flowing water, the endless hum and shifting of building machinery.
Even normal noises can be unsettling. Especially those associated with people. The building has become a living breathing organism Uttering creaks moans sighs groans from over 140 years of footfalls, voices, radios, songs, cantatas, the chiming of clocks, exclamations of awe & wonder. Whispers from a Victorian century long past to digital diversity.
Oh what secrets lie transfixed within these silent walls yearning for release.
The immortality of brick, mortar & steel record the march of ethnicities & nations who roam free these hallowed halls.
Sometimes the sudden interruption of footfalls becomes ominous, invading the sanctity of the Holy Sanctuary. Even the sound of my own steps is somewhat menacing. What spirits accompany me on perambulations among the saints and sinners?
The feeble burbling of the fountain stream’s half-hearted attempts to empty its essence, struggling to pollinate magnificent coins.
The day is at end, the light has faded. Now the night crew enters to continue the evening melody.
The Memory much like a Salvador Dali Painting is filed with surrealist things using ever day objects, that slip and slide out of the doorways in our mind. Windows roll up and down on their own, doors open and close arbitrarily. You’ve entered a dimension where the normal scientific rules are bent on an everyday basis. Youth can be restored if we can just get to the crick of life and heads like dogs lap up the youth sustaining water. Memory is a Bizzaro land in which we create dreams. Memory is the vast wasteland where we recreate our past and try to control and shape the future.
Donations and Freewill offerings can be made directly to my PayPal account deborah.palmer280@gmail.com
AthenaMemories of days gone byMemory
Description
Memory: on stone but never in stone.She Gazes into the Past while Contemplating the Future.Goddess of Memory gazes at her past.
Addiction – some habit usually unhealthy that takes over your life, an activity over which you have no control. For those lost in the throes of prescription addiction there is no escape from the horrors of the mind except via medications freely doled out by more than willing physicians and pharmacists. Drug induced hallucinations for those possessed by insecurities, depression, psychosis and various types of mental illness open previously closed doors in the mind. The addict seeking to escape earthly pain often unwisely even unknowingly opens portals to new cerebral dimensions, portals that eventually lead to the gateway to Hades.
I find myself walking through Bedlam calmly and quietly observing the poor wretches imprisoned within the only separation of safety between me and they glass with reinforced steel bars. Until I come to a long hallway on either side a series of rooms each secured with double bolt thick steel doors the only openings a slot in which to slide a plastic meal tray and a small window used by roaming psychotherapists who occasionally looked in upon the inmates deciding which mental miracle drug to dispense to these unsuspecting unfortunates. Compelled to stop in front of one particular door I peer through the small grimy window only to be shocked yet not too surprised to find my gaze met by my doppelganger. There I stand frozen to the spot my extremities taking root and branching out seeking crevices with which to penetrate the unyielding door that separates me from myself.
Jesus explained the dilemma of mind altering drugs the best in Luke 11:24-26
New International Version (NIV)
24 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ 25 When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26 Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first.”
Sherlock Holmes is one of the most celebrated fictional drug addicts known to most Americans. As played by the late Jeremy Brett, Brett’s Holmes captures the true brilliance of a man possessed by a troubled mind. He is the quintessential eccentric elitist, misanthrope and misogynist. In between cases Holmes uses cocaine to escape from the commonplaces of existence. Subject to long bouts of depression his drugs of choice morphine and cocaine, hence the 7% solution in his reasoning clarified and stimulated the mind. Often this is the case with talented, gifted genius level individuals. They abhor boredom and stagnation; craving constant mental exultation whether through industry, work, artistic, musical or literary projects. When the normal stimulants’ of challenging work are unavailable the well respected and recognized addict resorts to any number of remedies to recreate and/or achieve the same high gotten from recreational pursuits.
Holmes is the atypical functional drug addict. This is not to glorify or elevate prescription drug use above the use of common street drugs; the results from both are about the same. Both types of addicts experience dependence, cravings, reliance, and slavery to substances that destroy mind, body and spirit, eventually leading to death.
Like many possessed of a tortured brilliance only known by members of the “Talented Tenth” Holmes is an insecure elitist. The luster and sparkle of genius seeks to be delivered from the mundane, the trivial and from the insecurities that threaten to destroy a superior intellect. The trick is to elevate and expand the thought processes and at the same time hoping to eliminate present daily realities of pain and suffering.
Drug addiction is a false cure, a fake hope, phony sanctuary, ever failing to grant rest or repose to its seekers. If the Sherlock Holmes character was updated to these modern times his drug of choice might be Ambien the sleep aid that bridges the gap between conscious and subconscious mind.
Ambien transports ones soul to that place between wakefulness and sleep. It appears to enhance ones innate natural creative abilities. Users of cocaine and speed often make the same claims. These drugs both legal and illegal offer a false escape from the mundane. Substance abusers even leave the natural human sexual relationships in order to experience the multiple mental orgasms they cannot achieve through physical sex with a partner. Reality becomes the bad dream. The user finds her/himself caught up in an almost inescapable quagmire.
In one episode Holmes states that, “There’s no escape from the terrors of the mind.” Many times I secretly wished that life was like Etch A Sketch, that famously popular toy we children of the 60s played with for hours on end. If only life were like that little plastic Neanderthal laptop where with a few vigorous shakes you once again had a clean slate and the ability to start over.
It was a secret desire born out of stress, depression, and hard times to return to a time of innocence and being care free. However I realized that there was no turning back the clock. I had to face my inner demons. I had to ask myself did I want to live the rest of my life in the Twilight Zone when everyone around me constantly telling me I have a gift, a gift that needs to be shared with the world. Also what about my family? What about my beloved autistic brother? Where would he be if I suddenly was not on the planet anymore? In addition how could I ignore the calling I knew God had on my life? The answer is I couldn’t. Never at any time did God give up on me. That in and of itself amazed me. God kept sending people my way to set me back on the path of life. Even when I wanted to let go of this earthly life and move onto another plane, God said not yet. I’m not ready for you yet. You have more work to do on this earth.
No God did not immediately take away all the problems and challenges I’ve been experiencing but He did reveal to me better ways to cope. Through my gift of writing He has opened doors for me that never would have opened had I allowed myself to sink into the substance abuse quicksand. Of course there will continue to be bumps and potholes along the roadway but isn’t life somewhat like an obstacle course where the prize for those of us who esteem intellect the ability to successfully negotiate those obstructions by being quick thinkers and thrill in the victory of being an Overcomer? Enjoy the Treasure Hunt! Enjoy the excitement of the chase while in your right mind because you’ve been given everything that pertains to life and godliness and you are Empowered to Succeed!
Koyaanisqatsi – Life out of Balance, Crazy Life, Life disintegrating.
Ah yes deliberate dissonance, discordant tones and harmonies that somehow weave themselves together to create a beautiful sensory tapestry.
I’ve seen this done in dance with Twyla Tharpe and in a recent performance by the Shen Wei Dance Artists at the Met and also in music with composer Philip Glass who can be a bit extreme.� I think that is also what appeals to me in photo collage, taking things that seem to have no relationship and making one or items that have a logical relationship and changing the way the viewer sees them.
Dissonance strikes its own particular cadence making sense only to the viewers who are tuned it. In fact it strikes out at the viewer engaging him in a seemingly one side fight. I bring together those elements innocuous in and of themselves but joined together create a whole art form. Dissonance is taking the everyday mundane fashion an entire new creation.
It all flows together. It rattles. It shakes. It demands to be heard.
Hit the note on key, then threaded, spread it, flip it and bounce it off the wall a few times. They bob, weave and pirouette.
All together in one tiny room they create a cacophony of what appears to the layman’s ear noise but is actually a symphony of everyday items and the sounds they emit.
Life is woozy with interconnectedness. Word Dance and images assault the five senses fighting for dominion.
It is a cacophony reaching the very core of the brain’s cerebral cortex arriving at a level of distortion where all becomes clear and melts into one. It is the kinetic frenzy of acoustic violinist Lorenzo LaRoc.
How can one in a place of seeming quiet reflection experience the luxurious of a racing mind with images and sound vie for dominance with our core senses? How can we filter the stream and use it to our advantage?
Let the mind wander through the galleries independent from the body and see what happens.
Normal is the mutually created state between self and Goddess whereby you repeatedly step out of one state of being into a personal universe of goals, dreams and fantasies without having a complete psychotic break with the reality at hand. Living inside ones head with the ability to return to the Three dimensional worlds for discourse with earthly flesh and blood. Some forays take you over to the dark side but one must always have a plan or a way of escape or you will be consigned to dwell in the nether regions ruled by the Tormentor and populated murderers, sadistic rapists, and demented of the worst sort. I’m fortunate in that my ancestral angels have not only pulled me back but accompanied me, overshadowing my being with a golden celestial aura.
Anytime I’m dissatisfied with the present reality I retreat to my “Happy Place” π a parallel universe populated by created forces over which I have total control or at least most of the time. Occasionally the inhabitants may get out of hand but my fellows are allowed to stray from their appointed pathway only in the greater scheme of further ends I’ve already predestined for them. π Sometimes the Angels assigned to guide have me morph into alternate beings, with the ability to inhabit the glories of past and future worlds both terrestrial and celestial.
Each chamber of my mind has a doorway that opens to Flights of Fantasy Realms with many alter-egos and avatars each vying to pilot the “Dream Ship Taijhena “!
These dreams and fantasies become my true normal. Normal is the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt coupling with Flappers of 1920s America producing a race of superhuman beings and biomorphic forms who populate the fourth dimension world of Modern Art. The dissolute household, Isis, Ishtar, Nzingha, Makeda, Storm, the Borg Queen Lilith, Juan de Pareja, phantasms from the paintings of Tanguy and Carrington, the Wizard of OZ, Star Wars, all meet in a Great Celebration!
Visiones de Juan de Pareja
Juan de Pareja plays ethereal music upon a 17th Century Italian Harpsichord accompanied by musical voices that have taken the form of African drums, old Negro Spirituals, Baptist Hymns, Native American, Gregorian and Buddhist chants.
Juan’s soul once held captive within the painting is now free and he romances a young African American Woman transporting her through the portals of time into his world, making all her dreams of romance and adventure come true. The Lover has come to claim his Beloved undaunted and undeterred by the passage of time across centuries and continents. Taijhena became his model, his muse, his lover. Her reward; his full Moorish lips joined to hers. Her slender fingers reweaving the tangle of his thick, knappy, kinky curly hair.
The Kaleidoscope Turns
Dwellers from the off center worlds of Yves Tanguy and Lenora Carrington dance a ghostly minuet strangely in time with the aforementioned harmonies. Umberto Boccioni mechanical cubist forms shape shift as each civilization raises its songs of praise to their nation’s way of life. Rumi and Hafiz recite poetry in Old Persian. Surreal images of Magritte and villagers from Chagall mix and mingle in a charged atmosphere.
From shattered bits and broken pieces I recreate Eden. A forest populate with animals, plants, perpetual sunshine; all manner of jewels and precious stones. In the middle a clearing there is a slow moving stream, its banks alternately sandy with smooth rocks dotting the coastline. Looking across I see Beloved transitioned family, friends, even pets from long ago childhood. My suffering now over, Our reunion begins.
All happily exchange and converse within the Stream, that unconscious subtle system of verbal and non-verbal communication. Empaths guided by cues, pheromones, and inner thoughts, dreams and visions.
Always remember, “A Unicorn seldom this way comes to a locked Garden.”
Yes! Normal is the reality I create for myself!
Excuse me but my Creator Mistress signals me to re-enter the story from which I was summoned. π
Contrary to popular belief sensory deprivation rather than sensory overload may be the root cause of alienation. Not enough intellectual stimulation to the cerebellum causes the thought processes to wither and die much like a paralytic who no longer has use of his limbs. On the surface chaos is the semblance of order. Chaos is the first order of discipline.
Life as a collection of items, things, pieces of a whole, separate they are in conflict together they
Hallucinate baby Hallucinate because the world you once thought was real has been challenged by the authentic. I am one with the mad woman who lives inside me.
{Experiments’ in Dissonance}
Suddenly We have a new murder here and it’s wasting along the page.
The make dissonant movements damning the reader or the writer to make any sense of the dialogue. As in Jazz the worlds bob and weave along the page, not necessarily making any sense. Suddenly I’m fight with a perfectly black keyboard. tHIS IS A VIOLENT NEIGHBORHOOD. jUST GOT HIT oVER THE hEA[D WITH a cLEF NOTE.
Pitted where it should have been potted. keys at irregular lines and angles.The keys are diving in hollowing out, making messages peck as peck can. Someone follow J and tell me where he goes. You know that J cannot b trusted. And K, well K is all over the streets timing every Hookah House we know and some we don’t know.
Trouble nothing but trouble just like Q. Not enough known about Q. He’s the fakir in the group.
Hell’s Bells Messers ipad, ipod and laptop we still have to take the all in the questioning.
Found M laying out on the courtyard floor. Was it booze or nose candy? S came by in a sexy outfit hoping to distract the other two B & Y can talk business in the rather mode cyberspace combination of bar mixed drinks complete with Merry Go Round. Suddenly B, Y found R who in the interim met up with P. P left the car idling waiting for us to get in, while we all pondered could we even fit in that rebuilt British MG Midgit.
Y&R&P settled the debate by plying into an old VW bug. We’re leaving here whether you want us to or not and we’re taking the stash with us. B highly upset by this change of plans refused to fix the aerobiplane or the ramshackle ships our only two hope of getting off the island.
Life as a Void Consisting of Only Time and Eternity
An exploration of Emptiness, Nothingness, Inner and Outer spheres/realms of being
Do women occupy the inner sphere/sanctum of purity? Is the enclosed female space a sign of sanctity whereas the open hinged male space the spirit of adventure? Are women contained by societal definitions of femininity resulting in us being “Birds in Gilded Cages”. What is the extent of the power we have as women to define ourselves?
Katrin Sigurdardottir’s piece “Boiserie” explores many levels of existence. The enclosed room a replica in white of the Hotel de Cabris located in the Wrightsman galleries of the Met brings to mind a sense of the finite and infinite. As I observed visitors who thought they would be able to see their friends on the other side of the windows, they quickly realized the panes were security glass, meaning one could look in but not out. The mirrors in the room gave the impression of infinity by reflecting endless images. Like the worlds of many French society ladies and nobility they seemed to have everything, yet they had nothing as they were just “birds in a gilded cage” with their pleasure and privilege brought to an end with the French Revolution in 1789. This first walled in room gives a sense of arrested development. Its progression halted within the pure white room encased in what appears to be rather dingy plywood.
Viewing this exhibit is like looking into a surreal kaleidoscope minus the rainbow, where white is not just the absence of color but has the ability to reflect all around and within it.
Because I as voyeur and viewer share the same gender as the artist this exhibit propelled me into rethinking what it means to be a woman in our society. Gender has been defined as a social/cultural construct. Gender can be said to be the attributes and aspects which society says make up the male and the female. Women even women of wealth and privilege who resided in the royal courts of Europe have always been considered inferior beings.
How are we taught to see masculinity and femininity in our society? John Berger in Ways of Seeing, writes that, “A man’s presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to be capable of what he is not. But the pretence is always towards a power, which he exercises on others.
By contrast, a woman’s presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, and clothes, chosen surroundings, taste – indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura.” (p 45-46)
A woman’s space like that depicted by Sigurdardottir’s white room replica of the Hotel de Cabris, is closed and everything about her is directed inward. Men keep her physically, financially, and emotionally. Women’s gestures, attitudes and social discourse has been developed and defined within very narrow parameters. However not only does she watch herself but she watches herself being observed. She becomes both the subject and object of the male gaze. As Berger says, she is both the surveyor and the surveyed (p. 46). In Berger’s definition, men act, women appear (p. 47).
This brings up the issue of stratification of different types of social classes of women. Women young and old often seek to emulate or embody the concept of glamour. The behaviors of movie starlets, models, entertainers, and socialites no matter how vulgar, demeaning or degrading have become the order of the day. However the glamour of media stars is without substance. Many women failing to reach these unreachable aspirations die ignoble emotional, mental and physical deaths grasping for the brass ring but coming up empty.
Even female garments are designed to create restriction. Foundation garments such as girdles, corsets or spanx, garters, shoes too tight to be comfortable or heels too high to walk in, suggest a type of captivity. All are attire that suggest bondage and domination. A woman is encouraged to be a walking work of art in our society. Fashion magazines tell her how to dress diet and style her hair.
And what of the women disenfranchised by physical, emotional abuse, domestic violence and sexual harassment. What of their space. Can it be recreated or refashioned to include them in the dialogue or are they forever locked out via twin fiends named shame and guilt. I speak for those women whose space is closed, confined, where the doors are locked and the keys are in the possession of the oppressor. Once I was a captive of my abuser who physically left me Thanksgiving Day 2007 but the damage he did to my mind, emotions, spirit and psyche has never left me. He left his imprint on my soul. The brutes of shame and guilt entrap me by refusing to grant me the ability to trust or love completely. My only hope at this late stage of my life is that once I transition from this realm into whatever lies beyond I’ll be granted the gift of forgiveness.
I know my absolution will never come from the church or the so-called “body of Christ” as the “church” as a religious entity sanctions male dominance thus the abuse and violent behavior that stems from a patriarchal system.
At present I longingly look through the bars of my prison at those women given pardon and liberty all the while awaiting my next evolution into that great beyond where I will be exonerated, set free and love will once again make an appearance in my life. But in deference to my ex-boyfriend I dedicate this song to him.
Alice in Wonderland—Bigger, Larger, Smaller, Tinier
The extended accordion like rendition of the Hotel de Crillon room also located in the Wrightsman galleries gives a sense of expansion yet all the while the free hinges connecting the smaller and larger doorways gives the viewer the perceived ability to fold up and pack away in a suitcase this wonderful display of abstraction.
The larger doorway is a portal to the imagination, the rooms or cubes within our own minds. Have I like Alice in the story eaten the cake labeled “Eat Me” and grown too large, then drank the potion labeled “Drink Me” and shrunk too small. Or like the Alice in the Grace Slick song taken the pills that trick my mind into thinking I’m continually expanding and contracting. But I like the many visitors to the exhibit calmly walk through happily appreciating the aesthetic qualities of the piece.
These two exhibits are located on the Mezzanine of the Modern Art section of the Met museum. And just what is the definition of Mezzanine: “A partial story between two main stories of a building. An intermediate floor between main floors of a building.”
The interpretation of the two Wrightsman rooms is an intermediate, betwixt and between what is real and what is contrived. Similar to the Alice’s trip into Wonderland where reality changes from moment to moment and fantasy is the order of the day.
Can reality be perceived only through the five senses or is reality much like sexuality and/or gender roles only a social construct which time, space and cultures eternally deconstruct and evolve to fit each generations needs.
But I have journeyed from 16th century France, where kings and queens once ruled by divine right only to be deposed through revolution into the 21st century where we read in the papers, on the web and see on television current megalomaniacs and dictators forced to cede their power and authority to the once frightened and enslaved masses who have reclaimed empowerment. Perhaps since both pieces are constructions of wood paneling or plywood that in itself signifies the falsity of temporal riches.
These two rooms pose questions on gender, race, class and social inequalities than possible answers or solutions to aforesaid dilemmas. Or perhaps queries that come to mind have within them never-ending possibilities and infinite resolutions.
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 